Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas (1984)
Vitals
Harry Dean Stanton as Travis Henderson, once-wandering drifter
Los Angeles to Houston, Fall 1983
Film: Paris, Texas
Release Date: September 19, 1984
Director: Wim Wenders
Costume Designer: Birgitta Bjerke
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
One of my favorite actors, Harry Dean Stanton, was born 100 years ago today on July 14, 1926 in Kentucky. Following his U.S. Navy service during World War II, Stanton began an acting career that lasted more than six decades until his death from heart failure at age 91 in September 2017 after completing his penultimate film Lucky, which also afforded Stanton the rare starring role. He was a close, respected friend of many A-listers like Francis Ford Coppola, David Lynch, and Jack Nicholson, who included Stanton as best man in his 1962 wedding and habitually scrawled “H.D. Stanton” on the sets of his films.
Stanton typically made the most of supporting roles in films like Cool Hand Luke (1967), Dillinger (1973), The Godfather Part II (1974), Alien (1979), Escape from New York (1981), Christine (1983), Red Dawn (1984), Pretty in Pink (1986), Wild at Heart (1990), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Green Mile (1999), and The Avengers (2012)—a filmography so prolific that Roger Ebert once declared that, with the sole exception of Dream a Little Dream (1989), “no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad.”
Despite his prolific supporting career, Stanton was cast in leading parts for back-to-back films released in 1984: Alex Cox’s dark sci-fi comedy Repo Man and Wim Wenders’ elegiac road drama Paris, Texas. The latter won the Palme d’Or when it premiered at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival and, though overlooked by most American award bodies, has grown its cult reputation as one of the greatest movies ever made. With additional style provided by Ry Cooder’s original score and Robby Müller’s masterful cinematography, the script was written by L.M. Kit Carson and Sam Shepard, who offered Stanton the part after the two connected at a Santa Fe film festival.
Stanton stars as Travis Henderson, who begins the film wandering through west Texas until he is recovered by his brother Walt (Dean Stockwell), who brings him back to L.A. to reconnect with his young son Hunter (Hunter Carson). Confronting his past and rebuilding a relationship with his son, Travis seeks redemption—and his estranged ex-wife Jane (Nastassja Kinski)—by bringing Hunter on a journey back to Texas to find her.
“He’s searching for freedom like everybody, I think, searching for liberation, to be free of everything,” the actor recalled of Travis in the 2012 documentary Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction. “I think everybody is, that’s what everybody wants. Freedom from the fear of death, freedom from facing the void without being afraid.”
What’d He Wear?
For much of Paris, Texas‘s latter half, Travis Henderson’s wardrobe continues the palette of American iconography in his bright red shirt and blue jeans, only changin ginto a black shirt for the final act unburdening his guilt at Jane’s peep show. Travis travels from L.A. to Houston in a red shirt of heavyweight chamois cotton—a denser, more heavily brushed alternative to flannel. The warm, wind-resistant durability of chamois cloth makes it a favorite for outdoorsmen, popularized through mid-century by outfitters like L.L. Bean. Travis’ shirt is cut accordingly with its front placket, single-button squared cuffs, and pair of chest pockets covered with single-button flaps; all of these four-hole buttons are a low-contrasting marbled red plastic.
Travis tucks the shirt into the new dark indigo non-selvedge denim Levi’s 501 straight-leg jeans that Walt purchased new for him in Texas. His are the latest evolution of the “copper-riveted waist overalls” that Levi Strauss & Co. patented in 1873, standardized after World War II with belt loops, a button-up fly, and five-pocket layout consisting of curved front pockets with a watch/coin pocket inset on the right and a pair of back pockets detailed with arcuate stitching and the brand’s signature red tab sewn against the back-right pocket seam. Travis’ brown hybrid leather belt has woven leather across much of the strap, smooth at the pointed end with its three punch-holes that coordinate to a shining silver-toned single-prong buckle.
From Walt’s aloha shirt, trucker cap, and digital Casio to Hunter’s Mylar NASA bomber and camo cargo pants, the Henderson boys aren’t afraid to throw some fits!
After spending his first night at the Henderson home obsessively shining the family’s footwear, Travis eagerly trades his new boots for an older, more broken-in pair belonging to Walt. He would wear these shorter roper-style boots through the end, crafted with smooth brown leather uppers that have decoratively stitched mid-calf shafts, pull tabs, and pointed toes.
Interestingly, Travis changes his jackets with more frequency than he changes his shirts. When Travis first wears his red shirt while looking out over the city with his sister-in-law Anne (Aurore Clément), he wears it under the stiff dark indigo denim Levi’s 557XX “Type III” trucker jacket that Walt purchased for him with his new matching jeans. This particular style—with its two flapped chest pockets and six tack buttons up the front—was introduced in the early 1960s as the third iteration of the waist-length denim jackets that Levi’s had produced across the 20th century. Levi’s would add hand pockets to the Type III jacket shortly after Paris, Texas was made, so Travis wears one of the last in the series to only feature chest pockets.
When recruiting Hunter to his journey east, Travis now wears the fleece-collared tan bomber jacket that Anne had worn during their nighttime conversation (see above). This zip-front jacket essentially follows the B-10 design developed for U.S. Army Air Force crews late in World War II with its hardy cotton shell, brown fur-like collar, and brown ribbed-knit cuffs and hem, though Travis’ jacket removes the military-informed aspects for plain shoulders (with no epaulets) and simpler vertical-entry hand pockets (with no flaps).
The cargo bed of a coupé utility like Travis’ ’58 Ford Ranchero means you can have a picnic anywhere you go.
By the time they reach Houston, Travis has adopted a more specific military-like bomber jacket with his black nylon Alpha Industries MA-1 jacket, its telltale emergency orange reverse lining most clearly seen when he uses it as a pillow. Developed in the 1950s in response to cockpit requirements in the Air Force and Navy’s more sophisticated aircraft, the MA-1 jacket is characterized by its lightweight nylon shell that insulates when zipped up, with a simple ribbed-knit standing collar matching the cuffs and hem. The side pockets were covered by single-snap flaps, supplemented by an additional zip-up utility pocket over the left upper sleeve.
Mil-spec jackets were typically sage-green, dark-blue, or even camouflage, but Alpha and other contractors made civilian variations of the MA-1 in a wider range of colors like the black nylon that Travis wears for the last leg of his road trip.
A gray digital watch can occasionally be glimpsed on Travis’ left wrist, under his shirt sleeve and with the case inside his wrist as Stanton often did in real life. Unlike the contemporary trend for digital watches with squared cases and multi-functionality, Travis’ watch appears to be a simpler timekeeper in a dark-gray plastic or resin case with a single pusher.
The Car
Hunter: Is that your car?
Travis: Yeah.
Hunter: Radical!
Travis’ rad half-car, half-truck is a 1958 Ford Ranchero, considered the first modern American “coupé utility” when it was introduced for the previous model year. Adapted from Ford’s existing full-size two-door Ranch Wagon chassis (rather than the F-series pickup truck), the Ranchero was initially offered in the same straight-six and V8 engines available in all contemporary Fords and even allowed a slightly higher cargo capacity than the half-ton F-100 pickup.
Marketed as “More Than A Car! More Than A Truck!”, the Ranchero’s quick success inspired General Motors to develop the Chevrolet El Camino as competition in the new coupé utility segment. More than 500,000 Rancheros would be manufactured during its continuous production timeline that ended with the 1979 model year, outlasted by the El Camino that sold over one million before production ended in 1987.
How to Get the Look
Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas (1984)
Travis Henderson embarks on his Ranchero-powered road trip dressed not just in the red and blues of American iconography but also symbolically in his outdoorsy work-shirt, Levi’s, cowboy boots, and a rotation of outerwear informed by U.S. military tradition.
- Red chamois cotton long-sleeved work-shirt with front placket, two chest pockets with single-buton flaps, and single-button squared cuffs
- Dark indigo non-selvedge denim Levi’s 501 straight-cut jeans with button-fly and five-pocket layout
- Brown woven leather belt with silver-toned single-prong buckle and smooth leather end
- Russet-brown leather roper-style cowboy boots with stitched mid-calf shafts
- Black nylon MA-1 bomber jacket with black ribbed-knit collar, cuffs, and hem, side pockets with single-snap flaps, and zip-up left-sleeve utility pocket
- Dark-gray digital watch on matching resin band
To score this specific look, I’d suggest checking secondhand sellers like eBay for vintage L.L. Bean red chamois shirts. (While the Maine-based retailer still offers its classic chamois shirt, the only red-adjacent colorway offered as of July 2026 is a deeper wine color—and in limited sizes, at that.)
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
No, I’m not afraid of heights, I’m afraid of falling.